Outdated rules for travel on the cheap

As rules go, that used to be one. Along with cheap gasoline, it’s how my parents and I made it to Canada – not once but thrice. If McDonald’s existed, we never saw one. Even a one-child family could wreck a limited travel budget by dining out. It’s why travelers back then actually used the picnic tables in roadside parks. Now those shaded tables are dinosaurs, charming but obsolete. That said, rest areas would be nothing more than glorified restrooms and trash receptacles without them. I say we keep them.

In my college days, not dining out is how my schoolmates and I toured France affordably. Now the university has campuses abroad. How nice. But we students traveled with our professors (husband and wife) in VW buses. It was literally a moveable feast. We ate regional cuisine we fixed ourselves. We sliced baguettes with aplomb and concocted salad for 15 in the dishpan, meaning vinaigrette-doused romaine. Yum. When we did eat in restaurants (three times, as I recall), the meals were all the more special – particularly the crispy perch devoured on the terrace of a restaurant on Lac Something-or-Other. Yum again.

As for lodging, it goes without saying that hotels and motels have always taken a huge bite out of modest travel funds, at home or abroad. In France, we students slept in tents; our professors had their bus. We were young. It was the ‘70s.

When I was a child, the lodging solution for my parents and me was our homemade camp trailer, plywood painted silver. The bed on top was roomy enough for me to invite a friend, namely Sue or Barbara, to make the trip to wherever. That separate upper story had wagon bows and a tarp that opened once we’d made camp. Picture a not-so-aerodynamic pseudo-teardrop trailer with a Conestoga-inspired upper feature. That was us.

When Daddy opened the rear of the rig, voila! A chuck wagon, of sorts. He cooked on two gas burners, often with the griddle. He donned a chef’s hat. His hamburgers were classic. No wonder people sometimes thought we were concessionaires. If anyone ordered a hamburger, he’d fix it and surprise them by not charging. (Not a good way to make travel money last.)

In any town, Daddy was good at finding the ice houses. That’s where block ice was the cheapest. (He was also fond of any reachable snow we encountered along mountain highways. Nothing beats free.)

Good luck buying even an ice pick now, much less block ice. Times have changed.

Ice picks used to be murder weapons of choice. How long has it been since we’ve had a good ice pick murder?

That’s our perfunctory digression.

Closing thought?

If your grandchildren ever ask you about roadside picnic tables, tell them all they’re missing. They just might be intrigued. Probably not.

Hanaba Munn Welch, a correspondent for the Times Record News who divides her time between Abilene and a farm north of Vernon, appears on Mondays. Her columns, as a tribute to the Childress Engine 501, always contain, amazingly, 501 words.